What an amazingly incredible trip it has been. We started this year with quite a few discussions about our math mindset and how we could grow individually and as a classroom. Your student’s math notebooks came home last Monday. They were stuffed full with worked examples, student notes, and student examples that they used to guide them as they showed off on each assessment. There is a hidden gem on the first few pages as well. At the beginning of the year, they wrote their own goals for math and their math mindset. As I passed them back to them, I was impressed with how they stayed true to themselves and to their goals. They BELIEVED and they did.
My goal this year was to create a positive classroom mindset around mathematics. Students will learn in a classroom, but I wanted to make sure that they connected to math in a positive way and had a positive mathematical memory. I wanted them to believe they were mathematicians. Little did I know when I made my own goal for our classroom, that these exceptional children you brought to me would rise to that challenge and take it beyond.
We tied mathematics to so many things this year, even writing! And as the year progressed and we conferenced, I started to see that mathematical confidence grow. We put our hands on a lot of materials to make sure we made solid connections to what we were doing. We tied math to dinner, music, and anything else we could find.
We made sure that we respected one another and that our classroom was a safe place for all types of learners and learner levels. As a teacher who consistently tries to make this happen, this year by far was the most incredible mathematical community. Any student who had not yet mastered a concept was given grace by their classmates to find their strategy and their way to understanding. And, once they found that understanding, they didn’t stop. They wanted to be challenged in bigger and better ways, and they consistently rose to that challenge. They BELIEVED and they did.
Thank you for sharing these remarkable young minds with me. I can’t express how much I enjoyed our 180 days together. I did not want them to end. I was not ready for them to walk out of my classroom doors for the last time. But, they are ready for middle school. They BELIEVE and they are. I hope you have an incredible summer. Keep challenging those minds. And, please share all of their successes and missteps along the way, because that is how we learn.
I love them. I’m proud of them.
Ms. Boelter
Ms. B. in Class 